3x3 Eyes: Juuma Houkan (SNES) review

"There comes a time in every man’s life when for the sake of a seemingly pointless competition he is required to review a game whose name is a number because he wasn’t lucky enough to be one of the twenty-six other people and get a letter. Unfortunately for me, I have a terrible university internet connection, which ruled out downloading the game XIII and reviewing that. So naturally, I began looking through some romsets and picked the first game in my 7,637 SNES roms – 3x3 Eyes: Juuma Houkan. Go..."

There comes a time in every man’s life when for the sake of a seemingly pointless competition he is required to review a game whose name is a number because he wasn’t lucky enough to be one of the twenty-six other people and get a letter. Unfortunately for me, I have a terrible university internet connection, which ruled out downloading the game XIII and reviewing that. So naturally, I began looking through some romsets and picked the first game in my 7,637 SNES roms – 3x3 Eyes: Juuma Houkan. Going into this, I knew only two things about this game:

1.It’s based on an anime series called 3x3 Eyes.
2.I’ve never seen or read anything about 3x3 Eyes.

So I loaded up the game and waited to start playing. The first thing that happens is you find out that you’re apparently a constipated-looking Japanese guy dressed in a tanktop and sweatpants. There’s a bar on the top of the screen showing your health and currently held item, as well as a picture of your constipated Japanese guy just in case you’ve forgotten who you’re playing as (apparently Japanese people have significant short-term memory problems). You lead Constipated Japanese Guy (I’ll just call him CJ) through a slum city full of rats and run-down buildings and such. CJ is on his way to be a typical Japanese workingman, and he’s got most of it down-pat. You can press Up on the control pad to make him stand around absentmindedly, or press Down on the control pad to make him stand around absentmindedly in a different pose.

So finally, you get to CJ’s office, which is apparently devoid of anyone but him. You then realize that when CJ looks around absentmindedly he also sometimes interacts with stuff. So you turn on the lights and then go through this room with a bunch of burst gas pipes that are also on fire – I’m assuming this is to stop other Japanese people from edging in on CJ’s business of standing around absentmindedly. Not to worry, though. If you get hit by the fire, you lose a bit of health on CJ’s health bar, and then you find out about CJ’s miracle superpower – he’s apparently half moth and can eat these pieces of blue paper he finds on the walls to heal himself (perhaps this explains why he’s so constipated all the time). Then you realize that nearby is a valve that turns the fire off so that CJ can get into his office.

Once you get there, you find some old lady. Dammit, if it wasn’t bad enough that CJ is constipated, now he’s got some old lady trying to get a cut of his action. CJ ignores the woman in the hope that she’ll go away, and walks into his office.. only to find a piece of paper with some moonlanguage written on it. Damn, an insurmountable barrier. CJ finds a rat to eat through the paper no problem, and enters his office, where he begins having hallucinations including birds turning into pieces of paper. CJ should probably lay off eating paper for a while.

But running through boring environments picking up items and eating paper isn’t all your constipated Japanese guy can do. He can also get in fights with just about anything that gets in his way, including giant penis-worms, other Japs who are trying to steal his standing around looking absentminded business, and giant monsters. To do this, you’re given a menu with a bunch of bugs on it. I have no idea exactly how you’re supposed to do it, but by picking the right combination of bugs you can defeat enemies. The bug attacks include “IDIOT! HO-HO!” where Constipated Japanese Man shoots a shockwave of pure dietary fiber at the enemy, “IDIOT! SKATE-BOARD!” where CJ jumps on a giant flying rat thing, “IDIOT! SKA-KA!” where CJ makes a ball out of paper and then shows it off to the enemy, making it jealous or something. There’s also a move where CJ summons Bowelos, White Dragon of 1000 Years of Gastrointestinal Torment, which is exactly the same as “IDIOT! HO-HO!” for all intents and purposes. Of course, CJ’s bug powers have a limit and unless you pick exactly the right combination you lose, and you’re not likely to pick the right combination unless you have a precise understanding of the 3x3 Eyes manga series. There’s also a really confusing bit with the menu involving defending and/or jumping, both of which are required at certain points in combat. Instead of having an icon on screen, you have to scroll off the screen to a hidden option that allows you to defend or jump. Moreover, defending doesn’t seem to actually DO anything other than advance the plot in combat and make CJ stand around absentmindedly and flail his arms.

Now, at this point you might be inclined to think that “Well, obviously there’s more to the game he’s not telling us about to make the game look bad”, but that’s literally all there is to it. The game feels unfinished and rushed from the get-go, and never gets better. The game is incredibly short as well, lasting maybe three or four hours tops. It’s pretty obvious that 3x3 Eyes: Juuma Houken is shovelware. While I’m sure the entire background and plot of the game went straight over my non-Japanese-speaking head, I can’t imagine that even hardcore fans of 3x3 Eyes could like this game.

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